Roadkill

On the surface, "Roadkill" could so easily be another entry in the seemingly never-ending list of American thrash albums that made a bit of an impression before seeing the band go nowhere. After all, Meanstreak disbanded after this album and a bit more. Of course, that's only the surface. As with so much in this world, it's what you don't see at first that's quite interesting.

Firstly, all the members of Meanstreak were women. In this day and age, that's perhaps not so surprising, with no end of women fronting metal acts and plodding away on keyboards behind them. In terms of 80s thrash, though, it's a point of reasonable difference, as female singers or musicians tended to be used more as gimmicks than as legitimate musicians or singers at the time (plus ca change, I'm sure some of you are thinking right now). The key difference here, though, is that these girls were actually talented at what they did, rather than simply being thrown together because they could bash out a few riffs and didn't look too bad in a pair of tight jeans.

The second interesting point - and for me, at least, the reason I hunted this album out in the first place - is that three of these girls went on to marry members of Dream Theater. Indeed, Meanstreak apparently supported Dream Theater way back when, which I'm sure would have made for quite an interesting concert experience for fans of either straight-up thrash or prog. It's quite an unusual experience to be able to hear both halves of a musical marriage - and since I have the deepest respect for the husbands in these partnerships, I had to at least give the wives a listen.

So what's the album itself like? Well, as I said earlier, it's straight-up thrash metal with a good helping of melody and occasional (as another reviewer has suggested) NWOBHM influences. In short, every track has moments of being catchy as hell, and the overwhelming majority of the riffs are nicely-crafted ones. Listen for "Snake Pit", which begins with that memorable melody that every single film uses when the action is taking place anywhere from about Egypt to Bangladesh.

The only real drawback is that the songs are all (with the exception of "Congregation", which becomes ever so slightly an NWOBHM mini-epic) very short, generally around the 3-minute mark. On the one hand, this means nothing on this disc outstays its welcome, which is something of a lost art these days. Of course, on the other hand, with tracks this catchy, it's a real shame that we only have about 30 minutes of music to enjoy.

This is, I'm told, one of the rare gems of the 1980s. I can safely add my voice to those calling it that - if you find it, get your hands on it.